Because God made trial of them, and found them worthy of Himself.
As gold in the furnace He proved them,
And as a whole burnt offering He accepted them.
And in the time of their visitation they shall shine forth,
And as sparks among stubble they shall run to and fro.
They shall judge nations, and have dominion over peoples;
And the Lord shall reign over them for evermore.
They that trust in Him shall understand truth,
And the faithful shall abide with Him in love;
Because grace and mercy are to His chosen.[234]

Again he writes:--

The righteous live for ever,
And in the Lord is their reward,
And the care for them with the Most High.
Therefore shall they receive the crown of royal dignity
And the diadem of beauty from the Lord's hand.[235]

The happiness of the kingdom of heaven is in Scripture termed "life,"
because it constitutes the life for which man was created. Being made in
the likeness of God, his nature can obtain full satisfaction, and his
powers will expand into fruition, only when he enters upon a life which
resembles, in proportion to its measure and capacity, the life of God.
Jesus spoke of regeneration as entering into life. Those who receive the
Gospel message and walk in the footsteps of Christ are said to be born
again--to receive in their conversion the beginning of a new existence,
of which the entrance of the infant into the world is a fitting emblem.
They possess now not only a natural life, but a life hid with Christ in
God, which is a pledge to them that "when he who is their life shall